Review of the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary

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4th / 5th edition

This review is based on the fourth edition of the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary, published in October 2003. The fifth edition, published in 2006, introduced only cosmetic changes — some new, "trendy" words (e.g. spyware) have been added, others have been removed. Both editions of the book have the same number of pages and are very difficult to tell apart.

On the other hand, the 5th edition of the CD-ROM is significantly different from the 4th edition. I haven't had the chance to try it, but according to Elearnaid, it has phonetic transcriptions (finally!) and a new interface. It should be better than the 4th edition.

As of July 2008, you can still get the 4th edition from Elearnaid, and it costs less than the 5th edition ($16 versus $27 for the paperback + CD).

3rd edition

The third edition of this dictionary (published in 2001) was titled Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary. There were big differences between the 4th edition and the 3rd edition, but they don't matter anymore, because the only editions you can get today are the 4th and 5th. I still use the 3rd edition of the CD-ROM because it has about 30% more example sentences than the latest versions.

The basics

• The Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary (CCED) is an English-English (monolingual) dictionary, so it is written only in English. Beginners may be afraid of this, but we think that learners should begin to use an English-English dictionary as early as possible. If you can understand this article, we think you should use a monolingual dictionary.
• It has example sentences for almost every meaning of every word. Example sentences are the most important thing in a dictionary for learners, because they show you how to use a word.
• It has phonetic transcriptions, so you can read how to pronounce every word. The transcriptions are based on the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) — the most popular phonetic alphabet in the world.
• It is a software dictionary as well as a paper one — a CD-ROM is included with the book.

In conclusion, the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary has all the necessary features of a dictionary for the serious learner. Now let's see what is special about this dictionary...

A corpus-based dictionary

The name COBUILD stands for "Collins Birmingham University International Language Database". It means that the dictionary is based on a "corpus" — a collection of British and American newspapers, books, TV programs, real-life conversations, etc. The editors analyzed the corpus with a computer, getting useful information about the English language.

This method has serious advantages (more on that below), and the latest dictionaries from other big publishers (like Longman and Oxford) are now based on a corpus, too.

Full-sentence definitions

Probably the most interesting thing about the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary are its definitions. They are full sentences, not phrases. For example:

Because this definition is a full sentence, it gives you a lot of information. It shows that fruition is usually used in the phrase "come to fruition". How did the editors know that? They used a computer to analyze the COBUILD corpus.

What does this information give you? You can easily build your own correct sentences with the word. For example, you can say "His hopes finally came to fruition" or "Will my plan ever come to fruition?".

Look at a typical definition of fruition in a dictionary which doesn't have full-sentence definitions:

After reading this definition, you might use the word fruition in incorrect ways. You might think it is correct to say "What about your fruition?" or "Is this book your greatest fruition?". But both sentences are bad English.

Look at another definition from the CCED and compare it with a definition from the the Oxford Wordpower Dictionary:

The first definition tells you that the word wag is often used to talk about a dog. The second definition does not tell you that. It is too general. Besides, you can probably see that the CCED's definition is easier to understand.

The definitions in the CCED do not simply tell you what a word means, they tell you how to use it — in what phrases, in what grammar structures, in what context. At the same time, you can understand them easily.

The definitions are also very "natural". They are sentences that could be said by your English teacher or any native speaker of English. Having this dictionary almost feels like having a native speaker friend to answer your questions about English.

We encourage you to look at other examples of definitions from the CCED with our comments.

Example sentences

Our rule for dictionaries is: The more example sentences, the better. The Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary has at least one example sentence for almost every meaning of every word. The number of examples per definition is about the same as in other modern dictionaries for learners.

The interesting thing is how these examples were chosen. For example, to choose the example sentences for the verb play, the editors used a computer to search the corpus and find all the sentences with the word play. The results showed that people often use play in phrases like "play an important role in something" and "play an active part in something". So there should be at least one example sentence which has the word play in such a phrase.

Thanks to this kind of corpus research, the example sentences in the CCED show how a word is really used by speakers of English. They are not invented by an editor; they are natural. Just like the definitions, the examples focus on the most important phrases, grammar structures, contexts, etc. which contain the word.

Pronunciations

Phonetic transcriptions in the CCED are based on A. C. Gimson's phonemic system, which uses symbols of the IPA to represent English phonemes. Gimson's system was first used in 1967 in the English Pronouncing Dictionary, and is now used by most dictionary publishers.

• Like most new dictionaries, the CCED uses a couple useful (non-phonemic) symbols not used by Gimson: and . For an explanation of these symbols, refer to our phonetic chart.
• Unfortunately, this edition of the CCED ignores the fact that vowels like , , and are often pronounced like . For example, this goes for the in admonish and admit, the in possible and private, the in careful. In all these cases, the CCED simply omits the "" version, which is the standard in normal speech. If you followed the transcriptions in the CCED, your pronunciation of some words would sound quite unnatural.
• In some cases, the CCED takes the "no " policy to the extreme. Who pronounces adventure and advance with an at the beginning?
• The CCED shows stress by underlining the stressed syllable(s); other dictionaries use the apostrophe. The COBUILD way is easier to read and more intuitive.

• The dictionary tries to represent both British and American English with one transcription. The transcriptions use mostly British phoneme symbols and the dictionary gives rules for "converting" these symbols into American sounds. For example, it explains that all symbols are really in American English. We think this is a sensible system, because it results in short, readable transcriptions. (In fact, we use it ourselves in our phonetic chart and our PerfectPronunciation product.)

  Here are example transcriptions from the CCED and what they mean in British and American English:

  word	CCED transcr.	British	American
  pot
  go
  fair
  near
  lure
  barn
  mother
  bird

Note: Phonetic transcriptions are not included on the 4th edition CD-ROM.

Word frequency and the grammar column

The dictionary gives information on word frequency. The most frequently used English words are labeled with 1 to 3 "diamonds" ( to ). These are words which occur most frequently in the COBUILD corpus.

Grammatical information — for example, whether a noun is countable or uncountable — is given in a separate column (see picture to the right). It is not mixed with the definition, as in most dictionaries. Because of this, the definitions are easier to read.

"Access to English" section

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The CCED has a 30-page "Access to English" section which provides useful example sentences and phrases that you can "steal" when writing essays, giving presentations, telephoning, writing business correspondence, and applying for a job (there is a chapter for each of these activities). Reading such sentences is a great way to build your English writing/speaking skills in a short time.

Note: The "Access to English" section is not included on the CD-ROM.

Our personal experience

We first saw the CCED (the 2nd edition) in 1999, when only the paper version was available. We immediately felt it was something special. Normally, we use only software dictionaries, but we started using the paper COBUILD dictionary, because we liked the contents so much.

Today, we still like learning with the dictionary very much. When we need to look up a word, it helps us understand it and use it in our own sentences. Often, we look up one word, and then we feel like reading another one — the definitions and examples are so nice. Sometimes, we even like to read the CCED just like a book.

Conclusions

When you look up a word in a dictionary, you should be interested in what the word means. But you should also ask the question "What can I do with it?". The CCED answers this question very well by giving the most important phrases and grammar structures containing the word — both in the definition and example sentences.

Together, the definition and the example sentences give you an almost complete picture of how a word is used in the English language. After you read them, the word is usually "yours" — you can use it easily in your own sentences.

Example pages and prices

You can look at two example pages (first page, second page) from this dictionary. (Warning: large GIF files, about 180 KB each)

Today you can get the following versions of the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary:

• 5th edition, hardcover+CD — buy from Elearnaid ($29) or Amazon.co.uk ($39)
• 5th edition, paperback+CD — buy from Elearnaid ($27)
• 4th edition, paperback+CD — buy from Elearnaid ($16) — The book is nearly identical to the 5th edition. The software is reviewed here.
• 5th edition, CD only — buy from Elearnaid ($10) — Available at a great price. Different software from the 4th edition. Has phonetic transcriptions, but we haven't tested it.
• 4th edition, CD only — buy from Elearnaid ($10) — Available at a great price. Reviewed here. We only recommend this version if you have another dictionary with phonetic transcriptions (the CD does not have transcriptions).
• 4th edition, Resource Pack on CD — buy from Elearnaid ($35) or Amazon.co.uk ($43) — Contains the dictionary and Wordbank (like the other CDs) + integrated thesaurus, grammar and usage. The thesaurus is useful for writing, the other components not so much. We only recommend this version if you have another dictionary with phonetic transcriptions (the CD does not have transcriptions).

Shipping information: Elearnaid's shipping charges are lower than Amazon's if you live in America, Asia or Eastern Europe. If you live in Western Europe, Amazon's shipping will be cheaper by about $4 and the delivery will be somewhat faster. Warning: Elearnaid does not ship to a few countries, e.g. Poland, India, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia.